This Sporting Life: Glamour is added to darts as professional era hits target in Ally Pally

Published on Sunday 21 December 2008 22:01

DARTH Maple, The Painter, the Karate Kid, Tripod, Greased Lightning. All names that will be competing for your attention this festive season.

Don't worry, these are not must-have figurines from some eccentric Japanese animated series that your children will scold you for not buying this Christmas. It's December and world championship darts have returned to our TV screens.

The PDC World Championship began last Friday and will run right through the festivities until 4 January, the event having become such a Christmas viewing staple it almost deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as The Great Escape.

In many ways it is like watching a reality TV drama filmed at a large pub. There are the drunken regulars (the fans who it is estimated will consume over 250,000 pints over the course of the tournament), the buxom barmaids (played by the cocktail-dressed models who accompany the players to the oche) and of course, the old codgers in the corner tossing tungsten at a cork board (the players).

But there is nothing old about the glitzy proceedings taking place this year at the Alexandra Palace as Sky Television bring their trademark razzmatazz to the event. Long gone are the days when a glassy-eyed Jocky Wilson would emerge, pint in hand, from behind a curtain. Nowadays, the players weave their way onto stage in the manner of heavyweight boxers approaching the ring at Madison Square Garden, complete with smoke machines, signature entrance music and the aforementioned attractive females hanging on their shoulders.

Incomparable Geordie commentator Sid Waddell has likened the atmosphere to "a cross between the Munich Beer Festival and the Coliseum when the Christians were on the menu." Not that all fans are so under the influence they are insensitive to the drama unfolding before them. During one finely-balanced contest Waddell once memorably commented: "The atmosphere is so tense, if Elvis walked in with a portion of chips, you could hear the vinegar sizzle on them."

The event is dominated by Stoke professional Phil 'The Power' Taylor who has won 11 out of the 15 championships held so far since the event was born via a splinter group of top players who left the British Darts Organisation to form the Professional Darts Corporation.

The exchanging of 'organisation' for 'corporation' is perhaps key to understanding the nature of the split and the PDC World Championship is now the richest event in darts. The prize pot for this year's event stands at 735,000 with 125,000 for the winner. The PDC and sponsors Ladbrokes have announced that prize money will reach 1 million by 2010.

Already this year's event in the Ally Pally has witnessed defending champion John Part being knocked out in the first round by unfancied American Bill Davis and further drama will increase viewing figures that exceeded one million during the final of 2007. As 'oor Sid' said: "There's only one word for that – magic darts!"